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[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]
The Woke virus that has infested Academia, the sports and corporate world and large segments of the general population, is spiking up into its fifteenth or sixteenth infectious wave with no end in sight.
This virus has even spread into the world of religion and Bible translation, wreaking havoc on original texts that have been a mainstay for believers and scholars for over a thousand years.
This insidious Woke spirit in the world of Bible translations has certain blatant earmarks and is easily detectable. Advocates for traditional translations say that if a new Bible text downplays the existence of Hell or judgment from God, you know that that it has been tampered with and modified. Another red flag is downplaying the deity of Jesus Christ, as is downplaying or eliminating altogether the virgin birth. Bill Muehlenberg, a scholarly evangelical pastor and writer of a blog called ‘Culture Watch,’ labels this “twisted Scripture,’ and calls the writers of these translations “revisionists who conflate description with prescription.”
Muehlenberg believes that every effort should be made to ensure “that no contemporary political, ideological, social, cultural, or theological agenda is allowed to distort the original meaning of [scriptural] text. “ Why should ancient scripture be revised and recast as Woke? ‘Agenda’ is the word that comes to mind here. But this agenda is hardly new. As far back as 1895, 18 women on a serious feminist mission came together to work on and publish ‘The Woman’s Bible.’
The driving force behind the project was Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), one of the leaders (along with Susan B. Anthony), of the women’s rights movement. Stanton was also a Temperance crusader who believed that women had a right to divorce a drunken husband. She also believed that marriage was merely a civil contract and had nothing to do with God or the supernatural. One might describe her religious beliefs as ‘free form Unitarian.’
The Woman’s Bible was an attack on religious orthodoxy and so called ‘patriarchal privilege.’ It was more of a political treatise than a Bible. It was a Bible without a single consoling spiritual passage but with plenty of political rhetoric to fire up the culturally disaffected.
The most beautifully translated Bible is the King James Version. Experts say that it has a text that resonates like poetry when read aloud although some passages are difficult for contemporary readers to understand. Aldous Huxley said that the King James Version, “is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form.” H. L. Mencken said that the King James “is the most beautiful of all translations of the Bible; indeed it is probably the most beautiful piece of writing in all the literature of the world.”
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible (RSV) is respected by scholars although its translation errs on the liberal side of the Protestant spectrum. In Isaiah 7:14, in the RSV, for instance, we read that “…A young woman shall conceive a son and bear a son.” The missing link here is the replacement of woman for “virgin.” Muehlenberg comments: “Also, contextually, one would have to wonder how a young woman being pregnant would be a miraculous sign. Young women are pregnant all the time.”
Feminist neutral language in Bible translations was really the beginning of the ‘Woke wave,’ and these translations have stirred up a considerable amount of controversy. Muehlenberg brings up a good point when he says that feminist neutral language is the very thing that creates confusion and the alteration of original texts. To illustrate his argument, he cites two major languages that offer no gender distinctions, Turkish and Chinese, and then goes on to evaluate the treatment of women in those countries.
“In fact, I think one would be hard pressed to find two literate cultures in which woman have historically been treated worse than that of the Turks and the Chinese—and I say that as one who otherwise loves Chinese culture, but the way women were (and to a large extent, still are) treated is not the high point of Chinese civilization.”
In the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the “Son of Man” when it refers to Christ is not used because it is deemed offensive. “Son of Man’ is offensive because it denotes two gender distinctions. In the NRSV, one can find inserted words not in the original text and omitted words from the original text that alter singular pronouns into plural. All of this is done to avoid the high secular sacrilege of using words with gender distinctions.
Fr. John Whiteford writes in “An Orthodox Look at English Translations of the Bible” that this sort of gibberish is nothing but political correctness gone amok.
“In recent decades we have been confronted with the new phenomenon of political correctness, and this has resulted in new versions of the Bible that have attempted to neuter the English text to accommodate the concerns of radical feminists. This is silly for several reasons. For one, radical feminists are not likely to be happy with any translation of the Scriptures no matter how neutered the English in it might be. Secondly, the very idea that gender distinctions in a language are at all to blame for any grievances that feminists might have is ridiculous on the face of it.”
Growing up, my family had one copy of the Catholic Douay Rheims Version (DRV) with its traditional English and extra books (called Deuteroconnical books). The extra books were included in the ancient Latin Vulgate Bible and were, for the most part, accepted as sacred and canonical. The Protestant reformers rejected the extra books because, as one scholar has noted, “The teaching in them seemed to come from Roman doctrine.”
The seven extra books are Old Testament texts. Catholics, at least when I was a child, were not Bible readers. Hearing the Gospel and Epistle every Sunday at Mass seemed to be enough scripture for a lifetime. In our minds, the Bible came to be associated with Protestantism. Reading the Bible, especially being caught reading the Bible, came with a hefty price. You might be accused of being a Bible Thumper or a fanatic. The assumption then was that anyone who picked up a Bible and read it was a person of low intelligence.
In the summertime my hometown of Frazer PA hosted several big tent Summer Vacation Bible Schools, all of them sponsored by local Protestant churches. Almost all of the Catholic grade school students in the area mocked this concept. ‘Vacation Summer Bible School’ was an awkward misnomer since there can be no ‘vacation’ in any kind of school that had you reading ‘holy roller’ stuff when you should have been down at the shore building sand castles.
No doubt we Catholics lost a lot by not learning to appreciate reading the Bible well beyond the self contained world of the Gospel and Epistle readings we heard at Sunday Mass.
I recently ordered a review copy of the RSV Bible with Catholic additions that came to be known as the Ignatius Bible, after Ignatius Press that publishes it. The Ignatius Bible is the favorite of real Catholic scholars and serious students of scripture. Over the years I’ve attempted to read other versions of the Bible with the intention of finishing the text but in every case something was lost along the way.
Scott Hahn, Ph.D. Founder & President of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology said that “The RSV, Second Catholic Edition is the most beautiful English translation of the Bible today.”
I would have to agree.
For the first time in my life, I want to keep on reading the Ignatius Bible. The language literally sails across the page.
While ecumenism has been condemned by Christian traditionalists as an attempt to water down or compromise certain points of Catholic or Orthodox dogma, the Ignatius Bible, as the Introduction notes, is really a merging of the RSV with “considerations of Catholic tradition [that] have favored a particular rendering or the inclusion of a passage omitted by the RSV translators.”
Another good thing about the Ignatius Bible is that it doesn’t have any of the signature marks of ‘new world order’ Christianity.
Must I remind you that the Jewish people, the original “People of the Torah” have translations of the entire 24 books of othe Tanakh and have had them for mllenia. If you really want to understand and appreciate the Torah then read those translations. Koren is excellent, Artscroll is also excellent. Don’t read other religions’ interpretation of the Torah. Read how the original people of the Torah today known as the Jewish people, translated and commented on it. I found it starkly wanting, unfortunate and ultimately disrespectful that this author failed to mention the Torah at all. In what world do people live that they forget or have never been exposed to the most important writing and ideas of human existence on this earth?
Pardon, but what is stated doesn’t make sense: “…disrespectful that this author failed to mention the Torah at all.” The author of the article referred to “the Bible,” or a Bible, two or more times. The Torah is a part of the Bible.” How then was the Torah not mentioned? The Torah is a part of the Bible.
As as the Torah being the “most important writing,” it is very important, but not for the reasons many think of. Too many have drawn the wrong lessons from the Torah, particularly, the Law, the 10 commandments. Israel made a critical mistake in Exodus 19 when they told Moses to tell God they would obey and observe all His commandments. God’s demeanor toward them changed immediately. They thought they could earn God’s favor? They had to learn the hard way it is only by His grace that they will become His “kingdom of priests.” Peter, in referring to the Law in Acts 15:10 said: “…why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?”
The Torah is critically important, but one has to draw the right lessons. And I hope it is understood, or that it will be considered, that Israel 2K plus years ago had already reached the 5th course of chastisement contained in Leviticus chapter 26. That is an extremely important chapter it would behoove the Orthodox Jew to consider very, very carefully as it pertains to the particular view they have of the books Matthew through Revelation.
I have seen feminist rabbis only express concern for the welfare of Jewish women and Israeli women. Men are invisible to them. I would think that is a breach of rabbinical ethics, but no rabbinic organization responded to my complaints.
There are a few problems with the King James bible. 1 Corinthians 13 where “love’ is replaced with ‘charity’ is the main one. Some people don’t like the replacing of ‘propitiation’ in Romans 3:25, Hebrews 2:17, 1John 2:2 and 4;10 with ‘Atoning sacrifice’ , but how many people know what ‘propitiation’ means? It means an ‘atoning sacrifice’ so it is not a watering down of scripture, but a clear explanation of what ‘propitiation’ is.
People who translate the Bible into languages other than English – like foreign missionaries – do not use the ‘charity’ or ‘propitiation’ of the KJV simply because they have no meaning in most non-English speaking countries, and even most English-speaking people these days are able to understand the good modern translations better than the antiquated KJV.
So long as the modern versions do not change the meaning of the original text, there is no problem.
Charity is the correct word in 1 Cor. 13. Charity in this context speaks of perfect sinless love. In the word love, sin can be mixed in or present.
As far as the word “propitiation,” there are dictionaries. One can look up the word there. Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary, a very good one, will have the word. The 1828 is also available online for free. Folks shouldn’t get mad or shake their head at the 1611 translator’s because the translator’s had a better understanding of the English language than people do today..
A Lithuanian couple just translated the Bible into their language from the KJB. I’m certain they looked propitiation up in the dictionary and found the suitable word to use in the Lithuanian language.
Modern versions, the Alexandrian line, do change the meaning of the text. The New World Translation is not translation is not translated from the Textus Receipts, so that’s part of the reason the JW’s don’t believe the Lord Jesus Christ is God.
The stream Wescott and Hort used and which all modern versions follow is corrupt and then some. The KJB is the right Bible for English speaking people.
Well there are a lot of things you could say the same things. The most common meaning of the word charity today is very different that the meaning it had when the KJV was first written. Likewise, “in a glass darkly”, everyone gets this wrong, until they realize that the word “glass” meant what we call a mirror today. And mirrors, when Paul wrote that, consisted of polished (or nor so polished) brass, which even at the best were distortions and fainter than looking straight on (face to face).
Interesting piece. I remember when I read the forward to Elaine Pagels “Gnostic Gospel” I couldn’t help but think “agenda”, a thought which was only underlined as I made my way through her offering. In fact it was the agenda rallied the resonating applause for this unsophisticated effort to take down Catholicism, it was the agenda because the book lacked all credibility to an objective reader. I myself am areligious but was offended by the poor scholarship … and I had the same reaction to Riane Eisler’s “The Chalice and the Blade” – another “highly recommended” compilation of narcissistic presumption.
When moral authority is over thrown, chaos follows. Biblical illiteracy is the weakest element of Jewish and Christian ‘believers’. Ignorance of right and wrong, Biblical illiteracy, and social chaos are team mates.
I had no idea how much I was being delivered from when 54 years ago, being 25 years old I had a difficult conversion to Christ and the Biblical ethic.
Interesting article, but I’m also interested in the trailer park/out on a limb, Bible “translations.” There is a retired Air Force colonel, I think Simmons is his name, the long and the short of it is, every word that proceeds from the mouth of Simmons is scripture. There is also a thing called the Mirror Bible written by some dirty hippie, from South Africa. There will probably be more of this nonsense, because everyone has their own truth.
I agree that Judaic and Christian scripture should be interpreted as closely as possible to original writings for the beauty and wisdom to shine through.
For centuries, including our own, religious wars have been instigated by men who, in some cases, erroneously resort to scriptural justification. Critiquing Elizabeth Cady Stanton for politicizing scripture is myopic. She is also criticized for having encouraged “divorce” in the case of alcoholic husbands. Addictive disorders are a social and spiritual evil that gives rise to abusive behaviors, both toward wife and children. Perhaps Stanton’s criticism may have had a subliminal influence in the development of 12 Steps Programs to counteract the cruelty of addiction. Perhaps God works in mysterious ways.
Mr. Nichols, how does Romans 15:8 read in the Ignatius Bible? I suspect that it reads similarly as it reads in the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. Like the faulty New King James Version, it has that Jesus “has become a minister of the Circumcision.” That’s incorrect. The KJB has Rom. 15:8 right; He was a minister of the Circumcision. God’s program with Israel is in abeyance. God began a new program with Paul.
How about Colossians 1:14? I’m guessing, just like the overwhelming majority of the new Bibles, the words “through His blood” is out (and those words are out in the NRSVCE). And what about the critically important verse in 2 Tim. 2:15? Again, I assume, and there’s good reason to, that the words “rightly dividing the word of truth” are replaced by very unhelpful words. The NRSVCE has: “rightly explaining.” The key to understanding the scriptures is removed. God’s word must be rightly divided.
Is it merely a coincidence that in dozens of new English translations, every one, with the exception of the very flawed NKJV, and the KJ21, replaces “rightly dividing” with nothing but ambiguous verbage, such as “correctly handle.” There’s a text problem. Wescott and Hort had a lot to do with it.
I was raised Catholic. I went to Catholic school K-12. I can speak to doctrine and Bible translations. Peter was not the first Pope. He was an apostle of Israel. He will be on one of the 12 thrones in Jerusalem judging the 12 tribes of Israel. The Lord interrupted His program with Israel and began something new with Paul. Something that was not prophesied. Paul is everyone’s apostle today, not anyone else. Please see Eph. 3:1-9, preferably in a KJB.
“Remind them of these things, solemnly charging them in the presence of God not to dispute about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
But avoid godless and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their word will spread like gangrene.”
2 Timothy 2: 14-17 (LSB)
Because the modern versions such as the LSB does not have the super important words “rightly dividing” in 2 Timothy 2:15, that has contributed enormously to the confusion which prevails in Christendom. Christianity doesn’t know who they are. Many think they’re Israel when they’re most definitely not. Case in point: many in Christendom believe II Chronicles 7:14 applies to the Christian church. It most definitely does not. “If my people” pertains to Israel exclusively. Israel and the church the body of Christ are not to be confused one with the other.
Now, the LSB, like all the modern versions, have many problem:
The LSB in Colossians 1:14 “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” “through his blood is omitted in the LSB. The words are there in the KJB.
The LSB in Luke 2:33 “And his father and mother…” The KJB is careful in making certain that there is no misunderstanding in one thinking that Joseph is Jesus’s biological father. The KJB say “…Joseph and his mother…”
The LSB in Romans 15:8 “…Christ has become a servant to the Circumcision…” Christ had been a servant to the Circumcision before Paul, who wrote Romans, was converted in Acts chapter 9. Christ “…WAS a minister of the Circumcision…” as the KJB correctly puts it. With the raising up of Paul, God temporarily suspended his program with Israel.
That’s just a small sample of the problems with the LSB and the rest of the modern versions.
The KJB is the right translation for the English speaking people’s.
“The Legacy Standard Bible is committed to precisely representing what was written in the original languages. Accordingly, while the translation recognises that the Hebrew and Greek terms for “man” can legitimately mean “mankind” or “humanity” and renders such when appropriate, it does not add in phrases like “and sister” because they are not in the original text (cf. Jas 2:15 where the Greek word for “sister” is actually used.)”
Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com.
Well there goes the old bromide “FOGBOM” – the “Fatherhood of G-d and the Brotherhood of Man.” Three gendered terms marked for the Memory Hole!
I admit to being an unabashed reader of the King James version, while admitting to having another translation or two around the house. The KJV just sounds right. Admittedly there are problems, Gen. 43:25 being my personal favorite, but it is the most poetic of translations. A copy of Strong’s Concordance doesn’t hurt when trying to understand some of the more obscure versus.
Don’t those Dumb Clucks believe in a Virgin Birth or are they just hiding their Ignoerance?
Sounds like Thom Nickels don’t go to a Catholic school. I did. Mass 6 days a week plus being an altar boy plus religion classes plus retreats. We got lots of Bible reading.
I went to Catholic school K-12. Religion class every year. Mass, Confession, Communion, Confirmation, Retreat. All of it, except being an altar boy. Little to No Bible reading. Emphasis on the word”No.” Not even the small book of Philemon was read or studied. I think your experience is unusual and rare. Mass six days a week?